Teshuvot

David ben Chaim Hakohen (d. 1530).
Teshuvot.
Constantinople: Eliezer ben Gershom Soncino, 1537. (BRA2551)

David ben Chaim Hakohen studied in Padua and served as rabbi of the synagogues of Corfu and Partras in Greece. Hakohen corresponded on matters of the halakhah (the entirety of Jewish Law) with other great rabbis, but he is best known for this book of 33 traditional teshuvot (responses) to questions of Jewish Law. As the ornamental title page of the exhibited first edition of the Teshuvot explains, the original manuscript was the only text by the author that survived a fire at his son’s home in Adrianople, Turkey.

This book was printed by Eliezer ben Gershom Soncino, the son of the printer of the 1488 Sefer Miẓvot Gadol. He continued his father’s work by operating a press at Constantinople from 1534 until his death in 1547. Eliezer’s son Gershom (d. 1562), active in Cairo, was the last of the Soncino dynasty of printers.